# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S313
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
Peter’s words about “proclaiming the excellencies of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”
(1 Peter 2:9)?
The pastor is a priest/believer who serves in a particular way because he is asked to do so by others on behalf
of the royal priesthood, but Rome wanted to control the
appointments and so remind people and pastor who was
really in charge.
Luther responded to that idea with “That a Christian
Assembly or Congregation Has the Right and Power
to Judge Teaching and to Call, Appoint, and Dismiss
Teachers, Established and Proven by Scripture” (1523),
addressed to the town of Leisnig.25 The title leaves no
doubt about Luther’s position. Not only, said Luther,
does the congregation have the right to call its own
pastor, it has the responsibility to depose one who speaks
contrary to the Word of God. While all baptized believers have the right and duty to proclaim the Word, were
someone to be called to Leisnig, that person then would
have the office of preaching, the public office that serves
the congregation. That person, by faithfully fulfilling the
office, deserves respect.
Read Matt. 20:25–28; Gal. 6:6 and Heb. 13:17. What
do these verses say about the relationship between the royal priesthood and those of the priesthood who hold public
office in the church?
The pastor has respect not because he demands it or
because he is owed it, but because he serves the priests
with the Word. Any variation of “pray, pay and obey”
has no place. Instead, because he loves Christ’s people
and loves what he does, the pastor would rejoice that
baptized believers carry the Word with them in hearts
and minds and use it wherever and whenever they can.
With such a faithful ministry where people are fed and
comforted by the Word, the “hire and fire” problem is
diminished. And when the people understand that the
public preaching office is not their creation but something Christ gave His Church for their good, they hold a
faithful pastor in high regard.
Luther distinguishes between the priesthood of the
baptized and the public office of preaching the Word.
“No individual can arise by his own authority and
arrogate to himself alone what belongs to all.”26 “A Priest
25
Martin Luther, “That a Christian Assembly or Congregation has the
Right and Power to Judge Teaching and to Call, Appoint, and Dismiss
Teachers, Established and Proven by Scripture,” Luther’s Works, vol. 39,
ed. Eric W. Gritsch (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 305–14.
26
Martin Luther, “Concerning the Ministry,” Luther’s Works, vol. 40, ed.
Conrad Bergendorf (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1958), 34.

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is not identical with Presbyter or Minister — for one is
born to be a priest, one becomes a minister.”27 Where
Christians do not have someone in the public office,
someone should be selected from the priesthood of the
baptized and should be put into the office. The community lays hands upon the person to show that he is now
pastor or bishop. When that happens, then all should
believe “beyond a shadow of a doubt that this has been
done and accomplished by God.”28 This approach is
biblical, Luther insists, and the public office “established
by holy ordination [is] the highest and greatest of the
functions of the church, on which the whole power of
the church depends, since the church is nothing without the Word and everything in it exists by virtue of the
Word alone.”29
Luther commended a view of the church that would
include the priesthood of the baptized being active in the
ministry of the Word, while not undermining the public
preaching office. The royal priesthood would ask one or
more from among them to occupy the public office for
the good of the whole priesthood.
After about 1527, Luther tended to distinguish more
between the priesthood and the public office. He did
not depart from the idea that all priests possess all the
same rights and responsibilities, but he also noted that
not every individual baptized Christian is prepared to
fulfill every task; some are better suited for some things
than others. That does not deny that the royal priest fully
possesses all that God gives, but is rather the recognition that God also gives talents and abilities differently
to various people. It is the community of priests — the
congregation in most cases — that calls someone to the
public office and bestows on that person the right to use
the gifts that belong to all.
Read Rom. 12:3–8 and 1 Peter 4:8–11. What kinds of
gifts does God give to His people? According to the apostle
Peter, what is the ultimate purpose of such gifts?

Growing in Faith
Luther confidently expected that the Gospel would
change hearts and minds and reform the institutional
church, but the parish visitations done in Saxony in 1528
found that often little progress had been made. The devil,
the world and the sinful flesh still plague those reborn in
27

Luther’s Works 40:18.

28

Luther’s Works 40:37.

29

Luther’s Works 40:11

DISCUSSION GUIDE AND BIBLE STUDY

Baptism. It was up to the priesthood to keep trying and
up to God to grant success where and when He wanted.
Luther sought to build up the priesthood by reminding
them that they must daily die and rise again to new life
in Christ. These lessons are found in the catechisms
he wrote in the wake of the visitations to help both the
priesthood and those in the public office better teach
the faith.
The doctrine of justification by grace through faith
alone, at the core of the Augsburg Confession (1530),
was also important for the “church question,” for it was
the Gospel that made priests. As long as the Church was
understood to be only a spiritual assembly, its members did not need structures. But as people living in the
created order, they reasonably would expect to have
structures. They could live with any number of options
as to structure, so long as it was the Gospel that defined
identity and empowered service.30
Luther continued to hold to a simple understanding
of church and the priesthood. In the Smalcald Articles
(1536) he offered another elegant view of Church, plainly
evident to anyone in the baptized priesthood: “A sevenyear-old child knows what the church is: holy believers
and sheep who hear the voice of the shepherd.”31 Children only need to hear Christ’s voice, his message — the
love and the forgiving grace — and they know: there is
Church, and we who follow that voice are Church. The
Word, the Spirit in the Word, create and sustain that.
Pastors serve when they repeat the voice, and the baptized priests serve when they use the Word in witness.
Read John 10:4–8, 27–30; Acts 17:10–12; Rom.
16:17–20 and 2 Tim. 3:14–17. The sheep hear and follow
the voice of their true Shepherd. By what standard do the
sheep judge the voices of the various shepherds that they
may hear?
We in the priesthood of believers hear the voice of the
Shepherd and know this is the voice to follow. His Word
makes believers, making priests from the font forward.
The Word makes the royal priesthood and sustains it.
30
As time wore on, Luther found himself with a new and parallel
church looking to him for organization and ecclesiastical leadership.
Luther had never made plans for revamping the institution. He had
hoped what was in place would change and thus serve well, but it was
not to be. As the 1530s dawned, Luther was forced to deal with any
number of requests that would otherwise have gone to a bishop, and
Luther became, somewhat to his dismay, a church bureaucrat. He
turned to princes to act as emergency bishops and supported superintendents set up as substitutes for old-style bishops.

Martin Luther, Smalcald Articles III, The Book of Concord, ed. Robert
Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 324–325.2.

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Royal priests offer themselves in thanksgiving as living
sacrifices, intercede for the church and the world and
joyfully proclaim the excellencies of Him who called
them out of darkness into His marvelous light.

SUMMARY STATEMENTS
1. The royal priesthood is a biblical way to identify,
teach and confess the “one, holy, catholic (Christian),
and apostolic Church.” That is, the royal priesthood
is all believers, “from every tribe and language and
people and nation” whom God has made a kingdom
and priests (Rev. 5:9–10) by creating faith in Christ by
the power of the Holy Spirit.
2. Individuals become priests of the royal priesthood,
the Church, by the saving promises of Baptism into
Christ, where we receive the washing of rebirth, the
forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (John
3:5; Acts 2:38–39; Titus 3:5).
3. The royal priesthood finds its identity only in Christ,
the Great High Priest and only mediator between
God and man. Royal priests are in turn called to
lives of priestly mediation between God and the
world. They offer living sacrifices of thanksgiving,
not sacrifices of merit or atonement. In prayer they
intercede on behalf of all people. They make known
the excellencies of God in Christ, sharing His Word,
gifts and blessings with all nations (1 Tim. 2:5; Rom. 12:1;
Phil. 4:6; 1 Peter 2:9).
4. As the people of God, both corporately and individually, we mediate God’s truth of salvation and life
to the world around us. Every individual believer is
called to confess the faith to others since the mission of the whole Church, that is, the entire royal
priesthood, is to make disciples of all nations (Matt.
28:19–20). Members of the royal priesthood share in
that calling as they, in their daily lives, give “a defense
… for the hope that is in” them (1 Peter 3:15).
5. Each royal priest is to exercise the functions of the
royal priesthood—sacrifice, prayer and proclamation — in a way that accords with his or her vocation
within the three estates of home, church and society
(see Ephesians 5–6; Colossians 3; 1 Timothy 2).
6. The Holy Spirit is at work wherever the saving work
of God in Christ is made known, whether that message is delivered by a layman or a pastor. The Gospel
alone is the power of salvation (Rom. 1:16). This means
that the proclamation of the Gospel by members of

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the royal priesthood as they speak of Christ to others,
at home, with fellow believers and in society, is an
effective means of grace by which the Holy Spirit
creates and nurtures saving faith (Acts 11:19–24).
7. The royal priesthood does not undermine or negate
the Office of the Public Ministry which Christ gives
to the Church. Members of the royal priesthood, in
various ways, choose one from among them who is
equipped to teach and called in an orderly manner to
hold the Office of the Public Ministry and to perform
its distinctive functions (1 Cor. 4:1; 12:28–29; Eph. 4:11;
James 3:1; Titus 1:5).
“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by
his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and
Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.
Amen.” Revelation 1:5–6

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DISCUSSION GUIDE AND BIBLE STUDY

2019 Convention Workbook